Today in the One Year Bible, we read from Numbers 22:21-23:30. This is the story where God uses a donkey to speak to His people (Balaam, and you and me). Some people think they're too sophisticated to believe that God really used a donkey to talk. This puzzles me.
I mean, if you totally discount all miracles and you think the Bible is just full of stories that give us nice moral messages but none of them are to be taken literally, then you're consistent. I disagree with you entirely, but at least your thinking makes sense.
But if you believe that Jesus really did walk on water and heal people and come back from the dead.... why do you believe that, but not the miracles of the Old Testament? If you believe in any of the OT miracles, why not all of them?
In any case, we can still learn from the story even if we don't (for whatever reason) think that it's literally true. The first thing we notice is that the very first reaction to the donkey doing what God called him to do was to be beaten. This shouldn't surprise you. People have been beaten for doing what God called them to since the beginning of time.
The best part of the whole story, to me, is that the donkey has only been speaking (as far as we know) for a couple minutes, but he beats Balaam in the argument. "I've been your donkey for years! Have I ever done anything like this before?"
"No," Balaam admitted.
You can almost see the expression on Balaam's face as he realizes that his donkey just bested him in the argument.
Let's keep our minds open to the ways that God wants to speak to us today. Maybe He won't use a donkey.... but He might use a person that we're tempted to call by a donkey's other name. And when He does, we should make sure we're listening. We don't want to be beaten by a donkey by any name.
God, thanks for teaching us humility by giving us messages from unlikely places.
1 comment:
Amen
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